Deadpool #51Review

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Deadpool's secret game grows more complicated.

By Jesse Schedeen

With "Dead," the question is becoming less about "Will Deadpool actually die in this storyline?" to "Will anyone care by the time the arc wraps up?" Daniel Way's decision to shift focus away from Deadpool's end goal and towards the complicated farce he's weaving together is doing little but drawing out the conflict. It would be one thing if Deadpool's schemes were funny, but they aren't really up to his usual standards. The book is neither as overtly serious as you might expect given the hero is attempting suicide, nor as comedic as a Deadpool comic should be. It's stuck in some weirdly bland doldrum region.

At least this arc isn't light on action. There's a certain appeal in watching X-Force battle the Hand and Typhoid Mary. The tension between Tombstone and Kingpin is also fairly entertaining. But ultimately these are smaller details in a very crowded book, and the main character is failing to impress.

Carlo Barberi is gone, but readers might be fooled into thinking he isn't by looking at Ale Garza's art. Garza's style is extremely similar, with cartoonish figures and hyper-exaggerated anatomy. The art isn't big on emotional range, but neither is the script.

There needs to be more of a hook to this story, because the idea of this storyline continuing as-is all the way until May is a less than appealing one.